Well, the lunker catfish have been swimming back and forth in my head since a few nights ago, so I decided to go this morning before it got too hot.  I drove out to Walmart, got some catfish bait (some dough bait and some dip), grabbed some various hooks and such to replenish the stock, and drove to the park.

I got there a little after 8am.  Noone around for the most part.  First thing I noticed was that the wind was blowing the wrong direction for the spot we had fished the last time.  Not to let a little thing like that bother me, I set up there anyway.

Well, long story short, I didn’t catch anything big enough to keep, and the only thing I caught at all were small bluegill.  I suspect a combination of the wrong moon phase, wrong time of the day, wind and wind direction.  Algae also played a role, as the wind was pushing it towards me across the lake.

If you fish this lake, you’ll need to watch out for paddle-boaters.  They aren’t very smart.  Big clear lake to paddle around in, and they consistently end up in the far end where people are trying to fish off the docks.  If the noise and splashing weren’t bad enough, they tend to break the algae loose, which was how the wind was able to push the algae across the lake to where I was trying to fish.

In retrospect, I should probably have looked at the wind and algae before I started and set up on the opposite side of the lake with my back to the wind.  I was so focused on those docks because of the catfish we had spotted there that I neglected to look at the overall conditions of the lake.

It’s supposed to get pretty hot this afternoon.  If it cools off tonight much, and it’s not too windy, I might go back and try again.  If I do, I’ll let you know how it goes.

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My brother and I went fishing at the lake in Upper Moorman park in Quincy last night.  I fished this lake last weekend and caught a decent bluegill, crappie, and small largemouth bass, so I knew there were fish to be had.

Last night we only caught one bluegill keeper, and I turned it loose when we left, as I don’t like getting dirty cleaning just one little fish.

However, we DID see some big catfish swimming around.  I think if we’d had the right kind of bait, we’d have had a good chance at landing a few.  Probably lucky we didn’t, as I didn’t have a net with me, and these fish would have been a little heavy to try hoisting over the dock railing with just fishing line.

Drawbacks of this lake…  lots of algae, lots of turtles.  We tried cutting up a small bluegill for catfish bait – eventually a turtle was on the hook.  They’ll follow your bobbers around if you’re using them.  I think we’re going to have to avoid the baits like cut-up fish and stick with a stinkbait that turtles won’t find interesting.

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